Fort St. John, BC. January 29, 2018. — More than 120 long track speed skaters from across Canada will be competing this weekend, Feb 2-4, at the Pomeroy Sport Centre for the Canadian Junior Long Track Championships and Canada Cup # 3. The biggest contingents are from Alberta, Quebec and British Columbia, while Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia complement the range of participating provinces.

Close to 90 athletes are competing in the Canadian Junior Long Track Championships for the national title. They are also vying for spots to represent Canada at the 2018 ISU World Junior Speed Skating Championships, which take place March 9-11 in Salt Lake City, USA. Canada was very successful at last year’s competition in Finland and many of that delegation and medal winners will be skating in Fort St. John. They include Tyson Langelaar (MB), Beatrice Lamarche (QC), Graham Fish (SK), David la Rue (QC) and others. Some of them are very familiar with the Fort St. John oval, as they also competed here at the 2015 Canada Winter Games.

More than 35 Canada Cup skaters are racing to earn points for their national rankings in each of the distances. These include many athletes of the Speed Skating Canada’s 2017-18 National Development Pool and NextGen Status group.

The Peace region is well represented at this competition. Dawson Creek skaters include Jacob Graham and Hannah Brunn, who both train in Calgary and Dakotah Ruel from Pouce Coupe. The Fort St John Elks are represented by Brook Braun, Yuna Lovell, Amanda Mitchell and Renee Kalkman on the women’s side, and Nicholas Guliov, Nyam Newlove and Joshua Telizyn on the men’s side.

Race schedule for Friday will include the 500m and 1500m distances; Saturday will see the 1000m distances for everyone and the 3000m for women and 5000m for men. Sunday races include the 500m and 1000m distance and conclude with the mass starts event.

I would like to thank the organizing committee, officials, and volunteers for all of the dedication and hard work that was put into making the 2018 BCLT another successful and well executed meet. Compliments were received for the ice, facility and a smoothly run event. Our club is getting a reputation for great hospitality and high quality events. This can only come from good teamwork prior to and during the event! What a team! So thank you to everyone who brought food, helped set up / take down, put up posters/banners, officiated in any way, picked up parcels/supplies, made telephone calls, gave donations, took training, came out & cheered, made programs, folded programs, gave out information, ensured radios were charged, watches were ready, forms were in place, equipment working, took photos, changed their personal plans for the weekend, etc, etc, etc.

For those of you who are new to the club here is a run-down of the various jobs that we will be needing help with – we are always willing to train people!

Meet Coordinator: This is the job of organizing the event, we are always looking for people to help organize!

Referee: These are the official who are on ice refereeing the event. We have Wim Kok who is the chief referee for this event but he would be very happy to have an assistant to train

Starter: These are the people who will be at the start line with the starting gun or whistle.

Place Judges: These people stand near the finish line and determine which skater comes in first, second, third, etc

Timers: Timers have the stop watches and are assigned certain skaters to keep track of.

Recorders: These are the people who will take the information that the timers and place judges give them and enter the data into a computer to create the “results” that everyone is so eager for.

Lap Counter: These people have to keep track of which lap the skaters are on and relay that information to the skaters (we have count-down books and an electric lap counter)

Track Stewards: This is an on-ice position! These people will be placing the lane markers, repairing damage to the ice and periodically pouring water to renew the track.

Results Runners: These people are carrying the results from the timers/place judges to the recorders in a timely, organized manner.

Clerk of the Course: These people are in charge of marshalling the skaters to be ready for their races. They will be given lists of races and the skaters in them and will have the skaters ready and waiting for their races.

Safety Coordinator: Arranges for the first aid people and works with them to prepare for the event

Bucket Filler/Gatekeeper: We will need someone to fill the buckets for the track stewards and open the gates for the skaters.

Mat Set-Up Crew: We will need a good crew of people (the more we have the faster it will go) to set up the mats in the morning before the event

Clean-Up Crew: After the meet we will need some help cleaning up the mats and various other things from the meet. It shouldn’t take too long!

Officials Lunch Room: We always offer our volunteers lunch, coffee and some snacks for all of their hard work… so we will need someone to run our lunch room! We will need to have someone in charge (we will have people who will assist and explain the process) and a few helpers. We will also be putting out a request for food donations from our club members soon.